Podcasts by LPP Podcast

Are Kids Really More DEPRESSED and ANXIOUS Than Ever? What Can We Do? | Life Process Program from 2023-10-09T13:00

An alarming statistic from the NIH: 17% of 12-17 year olds in the united states is mentally unwell.

What accounts for this, and what can we do about it? (Hint: we've been...

REBROADCAST: Re-Writing Your Life Story from 2023-10-07T18:42:34

This is a playback of a 2018 episode of the LPP Podcast in which we discuss the following:

The Life Process Program takes clients through a staged review of their life stories, focusing ...

This Man Studied the Lives of CENTENARIANS, What He Discovered May SHOCK You | Mario Martinez | LPP from 2023-10-06T13:24

Dr. Mario Martinez is a neuropsychologist who lectures worldwide on how cultural beliefs affect health and longevity. He is also the author of The Mind Body Code --- which you can check out on a...

Talking Your CHILD Through ADDICTION, Collaborative Problem Solving THAT WORKS! from 2023-07-12T11:20

Zach Rhoads follows Dr. Peele's previous 5 "Ted Talks" -- 10 minute talks about addiction, natural recovery, harm reduction, and commonsense strategies for overcoming addiction. In...

Most People Outgrow ADDICTION - 10 Minutes on How YOU Can Help from 2023-07-08T11:13

Rat Park and Vietnam tell us two crucial things about addiction and recovery. They first show that recovery is a natural process when the organism returns to a normally rewarding and supportive ...

How do people QUIT ADDICTIONS? | It's a VALUES Statement from 2023-07-05T11:05

In this short video, addiction psychologist Dr. Stanton Peele explains that people quit addictions by finding ways to live their values (as opposed to simply choosing 'techniques'). He...

THREE Criteria for an Addictive Experience | PSYCHOLOGIST Breaks Down Addiction in 5 Minutes from 2023-07-01T23:03:32

If common experiences are at the core of addiction, how do we define addictive experiences so as to distinguish them from ordinary ones?

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Psychologist Responds to Judson Brewer's Ted Talk | What is Addiction? How Can You Beat It? from 2023-03-19T13:12:21

Dr. Stanton Peele Delivers His OWN Ted Talk (From home), in response to Judson Brewer's talk, "A Simple Way to Break a Bad Habit" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-moW9jvvMr4 Summa...

Finding Purpose in Mid to Late Life (EVEN When It's Painful To Get Started!) from 2023-02-14T02:29:12

Several of our clients have told us something to the effect of:

“I know that Meaning/purpose in life is a bulwark against addiction. But I’m ____ (45 - 65) years old…. I have failed relat...

Is Drinking HELPFUL or HARMFUL - Wanna Get CONFUSED? Then Read the NYT! from 2023-01-31T13:12:37

Zach Rhoads and Dr. Stanton Peele contemplate the transfer of knowledge about alcohol from Science to Society — and how imperfectly the job gets done. “Alcohol: Even a Little Bit Is Harmful!” th...

Three Pscyhologically EFFECTIVE Ways To Set Goals -- And STICK TO THEM from 2023-01-02T02:44:50

Step by Step Change v Radical Transformation: Two LPP paths to the same destination

Placing the person in the driver’s seat of their lives through each method.

***** SU...

Why Is America SAD? | Anderson Cooper, Serena Williams, Taylor Swift, and TRAUMA THEORY from 2022-12-12T14:42:09

How did the main theme in American life become confronting the lifetime effects of trauma, rather than triumphing over them?  

This preoccupation with trauma includes arguably the gr...

he History of NON-DISEASE Addiction Treatment from 2022-10-10T14:17:50

Tom Horvath (SMART Recovery) and Stanton Peele (Life Process Program) delve into their decades’ long association in the battle to establish non-disease, harm reduction treatment in the United St...

Are "Alcoholism" And "Addiction" REAL? | DSM vs AA vs LPP from 2022-08-21T14:18:25

There is a movement against use of labels like “alcoholism” and “addiction” as being pejorative and discouraging. 3

Zach and Stanton evaluate these critiques and discuss how to deal const...

Removing The MAGIC From The Magic MUSHROOM from 2022-08-05T16:35:59

We have embarked on a psychedelic renaissance, including use for both therapeutic and consciousness expansion purposes. In both cases the drug allows people to recast their consciousness — of th...

988 Mental Health Hotline WON'T SOLVE our Mental Health CRISIS! from 2022-07-28T15:44:27

The new mental health hotline is buckshot. Who actually thinks that calling a stranger for a few minutes addresses problems of depression and anxiety? Indeed, the idea that this makes sense is a...

How the addiction concept drives us crazy | Part II: Harm reduction as Reductionism from 2022-07-27T16:39:21

Harm reduction once sensibly meant dealing with the whole person to reduce their likelihood of harming themselves. Common sense examples abounded — like helping people find work, residences, and...

How the addiction concept drives us crazy | PART I: SMOKING from 2022-07-11T15:49:27

When we learned smoking was addictive we threw out all common sense: that people ultimately choose their fates, that they are led that way by their privileges and values, and that to believe tha...

Top FIVE Mental Health BEST PRACTICES | Life Process Program from 2022-06-26T01:24:15

Biological psychiatry has IMPLODED, and everyone knows it, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the long-time (2002-2015) director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Thomas...

The Yin and Yang of Asking Questions (and how to ask them) from 2022-06-23T17:16:41

How do you learn about people, about life? Questions. Yet again, how do you explore— and poke holes in— preposterous positions that people take? Questions. 

Finally, how do you help ...

How Jason Bateman BEAT TRAUMA and Became a STAR In His 50's from 2022-05-23T18:19:57

The Netflix series “Ozark,” besides being a sustained “hit,” has several psychological and addiction merits. First, show runner and star Jason Batemen could have been a basket case child actor v...

WORSE Than Drugs: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Were LOVE Addicted from 2022-05-15T16:55:22

We don’t care if Johnny Depp wins his defamation suit against Amber Heard. Nor will we render an opinion about whether “mutual abuse” can be used to describe a relationship where there is such a...

How To Motivate ANYONE using *Motivational Interviewing* and Motivational MISDIRECTION from 2022-04-22T16:09:37

The use of “misdirection” in MI

Using outside-the-box life areas (e.g., intimate relationships) to explore blind-alley areas of concern (e.g., alcohol), and how MI allows Chris Rock and a...

How To Avoid Being DUPED | Addiction, Love, Values, and LESSONS learned from "Bad Vegan" Series from 2022-03-27T17:36:10

How do we respond to virtually insane behavior by vital, creative women who devote their lives to petty shysters and hoodlums who rip them off and destroy their livelihoods, families, lives? We ...

Single Drunk Female | What Modern Streaming REVEALS About Harm Reduction from 2022-03-20T03:16:57

AA doesn’t dominate the alcohol and drug scene the way it did in the last century.   Harm Reduction has become a new buzz word, claimed by the most unlikely sources.  Meanwhile, p...

How To Avoid CATFISHING Scams! | Desperate For Love versus SELF EMPOWERMENT from 2022-03-07T19:46:21

The podcast “Sweet Bobby” raises the question, “What do you call it when a talented, caring woman devotes ten years of her life to an imaginary character, and can still barely function in the af...

Phil Collins' NON AA "Recovery" + We Answer Questions About Addiction from 2022-02-28T17:47:07

Dr. Stanton Peele and Zach Rhoads respond to listener feedback. 

First, they inspect the old AA adage, "One day at a time"

Then they turn to a case study centered on a former ...

Dirty John and the Tinder Swindler from 2022-02-20T16:12:58

Does love addiction exist?” commentators question. Yet our most popular streaming media stories are replete with the cases of people whose lives are severely disturbed by harmful, irrational int...

Alcoholics Anonymous: A Net Good or a Net Harm? from 2022-02-17T03:45:04

Is AA helpful?

Some people claim that AA offers specific benefits. We should say that we endorse anybody’s right to pursue any form of support or treatment they want, or find helpful, fro...

Johann Hari | Stolen Focus: Why You Can't PAY ATTENTION - And How to Think Deeply Again from 2022-02-14T23:54:23

NYT Best-Selling Author Johann Hari, In his new book, "Stolen Focus", explains why and how our ability to pay attention is diminishing; he explains why that matters; and he offers potential solu...

The End of Trauma with Dr. George Bonanno from 2021-12-19T15:31:11

Dr. George Bonanno's decades-long research on trauma and resilience reveals that most people overcome traumatic and adverse events in their lives. 

More important: people who do feel...

HOW TO PREVENT TRAGEDY School Shootings, GUNS, & Connection from 2021-12-13T15:43:25

Zach and Stanton discuss the profiles of school shooters. They see a lack of connection that is also present in youth (and older) addiction problems. Zach describes working with such children, i...

I May Destroy You + Radical Empathy from 2021-12-05T16:50:22

Stanton and Zach review America’s allegiance to the opioids-are-inevitably-addictive scenario even though (a) it’s wrong, (b) 100,000 people a year are now dying due to drug use. But separation ...

Hulu's "Dopesick" is the NEW War on Drugs from 2021-11-27T03:21:14

“Dopesick” is the new version of the War on Drugs for people who want to demonize drugs but to claim they’re not drug warriors. “It’s in the brain” they screech, pointing to their heads.”We’ll c...

DISEASE ENVY - Why People Yearn For Labels, DESPITE Their Best Interests from 2021-10-26T11:15:36

Stanton and Zach discuss why the disease theory will never die in America, no matter how many Americans die from drugs, even as Carl Hart and others (futilely) join Stanton’s antidisease campaig...

Joe Rogan's talk with "ALL IS DOPAMINE" Addiction Expert - OUR RESPONSE from 2021-10-11T00:23:01

Dr. Peele and Zach Rhoads respond to clips from Joe Rogan's recent interview with Stanford Psychiatrist and Author Anna Lembke. 

It was with some disappointment — but little surprise...

INSTAGRAM Addiction, Revisiting "FREE RANGE", & New BRAIN DISEASE News from 2021-09-28T11:12:53

Zach and Stanton review the addiction news of the week: from "love" addiction (actually, love is the opposite of addiction) to instagram addiction, to the perpetual search for addiction in the b...

Lenore Skenazy | Future-Proofing and ADDICTION-Proofing our Next Generation from 2021-09-19T13:15:59

Today's guest wants to "future-proof" our next generation. That is, to tug on the natural tendency of children to explore, learn, and grow competent along the way, just as we, at the Life Proces...

Zach Compares Heroin Addiction to Love Addiction -- Stanton Responds from 2021-09-07T15:35:07

This is a short clip from Zach Rhoads' forthcoming interview with Dr. Stanton Peele.

Stanton wrote the best-selling 1975 book, Love and Addiction, in which he laid out a conceptu...

The Ethics of Fighting Disease Myths from 2021-09-06T23:22:22

There’s no need to contest or censor divergent views on addiction and mental illness as told, for instance, by Koren Zailckas, William Styron, and T Kira Madden. They are effortlessly assimilate...

MARK NORMAND: Implanting the Recovery Chip | Trauma, Role Models, NON RECOVERY STORY from 2021-09-05T22:23:27

Zach and Stanton discuss Mark Normand, who as a young man would certainly pass  Gabor Maté’s muster as traumatized. 

Normand developed drinking issues in his 20s, but didn’t fol...

Afghanistan, Vietnam and the Disease Theory of Addiction from 2021-08-27T02:21:43

Our massive failure in Afghanistan reminds us of cultural delusions that have gutted us in the past—starting with Vietnam. Vietnam signaled that we didn’t comprehend the consequences of our over...

Olympic Inspiration | Heroic Achievement, Stoicism, & Overcoming Trauma from 2021-08-17T21:58:39

Zach and Stanton return to the Olympic fields of glory to worship the women who have overcome every challenge—mental health, moral, and existential—by declaring: “I will not be defeated.”

UNDOING DRUGS: A History Of Harm Reduction With MAIA SZALAVITZ from 2021-08-11T10:45:41

Zach Rhoads speaks with Maia Szalavitz about her new book, "Undoing Drugs", which traces the history of Harm Reduction from the movement's genesis to the way it affects mainstream thoughts, beli...

HARM REDUCTION & Community Healing from 2021-07-23T03:27:01

Zach discusses the personal meaning of community as “therapy” in terms of his own experiences of a family tragedy, one that drew his extended family together. In this discussion he reflects on t...

Lean on Me: Stanton sings COMMUNITY as therapy from 2021-07-14T16:37:01

America is convinced that if it can only provide enough medicalized treatment that all of its citizens will be fine. The opposite is true. As Stanton quotes a chapter head from his memoir: ...

Sober Good; Drinking Bad -- Why "Sobriety" is the Modern Temperance from 2021-07-05T17:11:23

Remarkably, American anti-alcohol forces are front and present in contemporary progressive thought. They are amplified by incessant clarion calls for people to abstain — i.e., to enter “”recover...

Politics, Britney Spears, Trauma, and DISEASE from 2021-06-28T12:57

Stanton and Zach dissect the current news cycle. 

First, Britney Spears revealed she is being medicated against her will. She is still being held captive by her “diseases” (the ones ...

Matthew McConaughey and Quinta Brunson -- Parents, Trauma, and Forgiveness from 2021-06-20T23:34:05

In memoirs that defy current thinking, Matthew McConaughey and Quinta Brunson describe being beaten and repressed, respectively, by their parents. Only they don’t currently dislike their parents...

Mare of Easttown -- Is HBO Moving Away from Drug HYSTERIA? from 2021-06-17T01:07:48

HBO has become the ultimate destination of Harm Reduction in streaming media with its shows Mare of Easttown and Hacks. In both, the show’s protagonists (again played by women) drink (Mare) and ...

American confessions tug at our heart strings. Do they help? from 2021-06-07T13:23:46

Naomi Osaka’s decision to withdraw from the French Open rather than face a post match press conference became worldwide news. Osaka says her depression and anxiety make it impossible for her to ...

Believing the UNBELIEVABLE: Cognitive Distortions in the Drug Reform Field from 2021-05-23T13:41:57

WARNING: Please be aware that the following many not be suitable for people who are disturbed by discussions of death OR of the fallible thinking that prevails in the drug reform field.

L...

You MUST be Treated! (Coerced Treatment and How to Overcome it) from 2021-05-10T18:48

WHY do people so often reject drug and alcohol treatment, let alone refusing to volunteer for it, so that American addiction treatment depends on the legal system to survive?  Stanton and Z...

The Pandemic Has Made Us All ALCOHOLIC! (or not) from 2021-05-02T12:19:08

Stanton and Zach consider five responses to NY Times article seeding “pandemic panic” @ alcohol:  

1. There hasn’t been a significant increase in drinking. 

2. Problems w...

How Psychedelics Work, Jud Brewer's Mindfulness, Seth Rogen's Cannabis Use | LPP Podcast from 2021-04-26T18:52:18

Addiction news of the week (and its meaning and uses) in review: 

What does it tell us about (a) medical therapy, (b) the history of medicine, (c) the nature of mental disorders that...

Reflections on Maia Szalavitz, Problems With The Disease Model, Casual Drug Use from 2021-04-18T16:18:09

Dr. Peele and Zach consider Zach’s interview with Maia Szalavitz. Does Maia believe in the disease theory? What would happen if she took heroin again?  Would she "Richard Harris" it (drinki...

GUEST Maia Szalavitz: Addiction, Harm Reduction, Methadone Maintenance from 2021-04-11T12:50:38

Maia Szalavitz joins Zach Rhoads a discussion about addiction and harm reduction, including her forthcoming book, "Undoing Drugs".

Maia and Zach agree on a definition of addiction but re-...

Q&A With Dr. Peele: "Am I focusing TOO much on moderation?" from 2021-04-06T14:04:30

Dr. Stanton Peele takes questions from LPP followers. Today he tackles the concept of moderation, which LPP encourages with respect to drugs, alcohol, or any other involvement that a person may ...

Sundays With Stories: Cannabis & Teens, Drug Sensationalism, & Hunter Biden Saved By Love from 2021-04-05T18:37:07

JAMA Pediatric affirms what Dr. Peele has been saying for fifty years (which prominent drug-reformers deny): “marijuana is as addictive as opioids.” Or is that... Opioids are only as addictive a...

Demi Lovato: Breaking Free From The "RECOVERY" Narrative from 2021-04-01T11:43:02

California dreamer Demi Lovato joins the long list of people who don’t conform to the recovery narrative. Only she’s up front about it.

Demi Lovato’s intense substance-use history almost ...

What Does Addiction Have To Do With The Tragic Events In Atlanta? | Life Process Program from 2021-03-22T01:08:21

Dr. Stanton Peele and Zach Rhoads respond to news threads that link the recent Atlanta murders to sex addiction.  

Does this claim make sense or is the "sex addiction" claim simply a...

How Meghan Markle Overcame Depression WITHOUT Psychiatry, Drugs, or 800-numbers from 2021-03-17T15:40:05

Meghan Markel is being used as an example of how speaking openly about depression is invaluable in order to get treatment and avoid suicide.

Well, not so fast... 

Here are som...

The Breakfast Club's TASTELESS Interview With Carl Hart | Stanton's FIVE TIPS For Carl As He Promotes His Book from 2021-03-11T01:33:33

Dr. Carl Hart has faced rough seas promoting his new book. As helpers and theorists who have faced similar tempests, Stanton and Zach offer some helpful hints.

***** Learn mor...

Minisode | Q&A with Dr. Peele: "Is 'Sex Addiction' different from 'Love Addiction'?" from 2021-03-03T16:18:01

An audience member asks 'Is "Sex Addiction" different from "Love Addiction' and can the two concepts be used interchangeably?  Stanton explores the differences between the two terms and ill...

Youth, Addition, and a Failed Treatment Industry (Part 1 / 3) -- Madeleine Dean's Rehab Fantasy from 2021-03-03T13:39:14

Madeleine Dean: We admire you, but you’re thinking about America’s addiction problems is all wrong. 

Dr. Peele and Zach explain to the Congresswoman how she is going in exactly the w...

Is Sex Addiction Different From "Love Addiction"? from 2021-02-23T22:48:46

An audience member asks 'Is "Sex Addiction" different from "Love Addiction' and can the two concepts be used interchangeably? 

Stanton explores the differences between the two terms ...

Jordan Peterson's Messy Room | Benzodiazepines, 12 Rules For Life, Addiction | Sundays With Stories from 2021-02-15T11:05:13

Dr. Stanton Peele and Zach Rhoads discuss Jordan Peterson's work, his views about addiction, and how he handled his own addiction to benzodiazepines (with an understanding that Peterson makes a ...

Dr. Carl Hart | Drug Use For GROWN-UPS | Life Process Program, Sundays With Stories from 2021-02-09T03:12:40

Dr. Carl Hart explains that the vast majority of people who use drugs do so with no problem. In fact, drugs -- yes, even so-called "hard drugs"-- offer more positive than negative experiences. Listen

What Does It Mean to be "Trauma Informed"? from 2021-02-05T15:55:08

Dr. Stanton Peele and Zach Rhoads answer the following frequently asked question: Is LPP a “trauma informed program”?

They offer a definition of “trauma” in sev...

Hunter Biden, Pussy Riot, and Family Addiction Entanglements | LPP Podcast from 2021-01-31T05:01:11

Questions of family often appear in relation to addiction and drug issues.

As with all questions in these areas, discussion is misled by disease beliefs, which le...